Free Speech & Open Government Award

These journalists covered a flawed 911 system rollout, police guns being used in crimes, and illegal rent increass.

Greenson of the North Coast Journal; Sumar and McCabe of The New York Times and Leah Nylen of Bloomberg; and nonprofit, collaborative news platform MuckRock

Du Sault for her reporting on Police Dept. investigations into officer caused deaths; Hogan for her reporting on of six Maine jails recording inmate/attorney calls; and Schulte for uncovering vast overpayments to Medicaid Advantage insurance companies.

Drange for reporting on tech companies’ non-disclosure agreements; Voice of San Diego for its series “Year One: COVID-19’s Death Toll;” and Lewis and Dirks for their police transparency reporting

For “Documenting COVID-19”, which created a massive clearinghouse of public records in partnership with 30 newsrooms.

For the project’s groundbreaking statewide campaign to bring to light records of police misconduct.

For its extensive use of public records to increase transparency around political appointees at the highest levels of government.

For their joint work to bring accountability and transparency to police use of automated license plate readers.

For Peele, an investigative reporter who used public records requests to build a database of weapons lost by or stolen from CA police, and Carolyn Titus of the Ferndale Enterprise, who battled the County Fair Association over disclosure of financial records.

MCW for upholding the finest traditions of community journalism; Branch for demonstrating the effectiveness of citizen activism in holding officials accountable.

Pillar for investigative reporting; Murphy and Selder for effective use of goverment data.